Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Goals for 2015, part 2

This is my fabric cabinet.  My husband made this cabinet from leftover wood from the log home.  It weighs a ton, empty, and full I'm sure it weighs two tons!  After they put the carpet down in the basement, I made the carpet people move it, empty, to the spot it's in now - never to be moved again! 
Anyway, it doesn't look like I have much stash, but trust me on this, I do.  It does look like it's a mess and needs to be cleaned up -- and that it does!  So, this is one of my goals for 2015:  clean out this cabinet, refold the fabric and make it more accessible, and then start using it up.  Most of this fabric is quite a few years old.  When I started quilting back in the 90's, it was the fashion to build your stash.  So, I bought fabric - and lots of it.  I didn't really develop a favorite style back then- I collected plaids at one time, homespuns, lots of fabrics with applique possibilities, baby fabrics; went through a Sandy Gervais phase where I bought a lot of her fabrics, early on I bought Thimbleberries fabrics - and I'm not fond of them at all, and then Kansas Troubles -- still love Kansas Troubles fabrics, some thirties, some civil war, flowers - had a whole stack of flowered fabrics too, and of course Christmas fabrics too!  You get the picture.  
Nowadays, I rarely buy fabrics at all unless I need something specific -- like baby fabric I bought for a couple of baby quilts in December.  So, the goal for 2015 is to whittle down the stash.  I think I'll be donating a lot of it to the homeless quilt project at church.  I have some fabrics that were donated by a former quilt shop owner that need to be cut, but when I'm caught up with those, I will be working on my own stash.

That leads me to another goal for 2015:  Cutting fabrics for the sew-in we have each month at church.  I'd like to cut enough fabrics to make up at least 5 kits each month.  We have a few quilters in the group, and they've provided a lot of already cut fabrics that we've been teaching our non-quilters to put together to make quilts.  But, as the non-quilters get used to piecing the quilts, they are getting faster at it, so just to keep up I need to make up kits each month.  We started this group last spring, and we consistently have about a dozen people show up every month to sew with us - it's amazing to me!  One lady even asked her husband for a sewing machine for Christmas because she enjoys sewing with us so much!
So that brings me to my final goal for the new year:  Putting together all the kits and projects and ufo's I have in the cabinet, in drawers, in bags -- you know how it is.  The above quilt kit was a gift from a friend a couple of years ago.  I pulled it from the depths of the cabinet the other day and actually cut it out yesterday and started stitching it together while the longarm was busy quilting another homeless quilt.  I'm sure I won't make it through all the wips and ufo's, but I'm gonna work towards that goal.  And I'm going to concentrate on making larger quilts in 2015.  2014 was the year of taking classes (Jo's Little Women and Kim Diehl's new class) and all but one of the projects were small quilts -- not only small finished size, but also smaller pieces and I think I'm done for awhile with both!  I'm going to work on lap size or larger and make them for certain family members in 2015.  Like the above quilt -- it's lap size and I think one of my nephews might like it.

So, that's my goals for 2015.  And, since tomorrow is the new year, I'll start cleaning out the cabinet tomorrow, and work on the above quilt.
Until next time....blessings, and I hope your new year is filled with happiness, and hope.


1 comment :

Karen said...

Sounds like a plan! Keep up the good work!